A beautiful lesson taught in beautiful language…

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.

Interpretation:
(My own… so it might not be the currently ‘accepted’ interpretation by those wow-wow literary pple. Heheh. But I guess that’s what literature should be, half the excitement is gone if you read other people’s interpretations, right? And this isn’t for exams anyway.)

sorry for the digression, here’s my interpretation.
In this excerpt, Plato makes use of a common occurence in daily life, to explain something of much deeper significance.
Remember how our eyesight gets all blurred when we step from a dark room, into the bright sunshine outside? And how we can’t see properly when we step from outside into a dark cinema? He says this is the same for the mind’s eye, which I believe is symbolic of the path we are taking. An example of coming out from the dark and into the light is like a drug addict who’s successfully cured himself of his addiction. An example of coming from the light into the dark, is akin to falling into the darkness, as if we’ve chosen to do something bad, may it be morally or physically.
If a person were to laugh, the meaning of his mirth would be different for both situations. It should be one of pity, or of bitterness, at the one who’s going into the dark; and it would be of happiness and gaiety, for the one who has entered the light.
Within this excerpt, Plato also urges us not to be superficial. Not to laugh just at the perplexity/weakness of vision (ie. not to laugh at those who are confused, or who are not as intelligent as ourselves), but to ponder over the reason why the person is experiencing it.

(I so cannot stand teachers/professors/tutors who cannot keep an open mind to really listen, consider and treat some of my opinions with respect. Few are really able to accept novel views, I think it stems from everyone’s hidden, repressed fear: I’m afraid of being stupid. And that drives them to want to appear intelligent, thus their outward rejection of opinions from pple deemed to be ‘less intelligent’ than them.

The worse personality however, is the one who has that repressed fear, but still attempts to ‘humour’ me, just bear in mind that I too, have learnt the importance of respecting pple from cofm and all that psychomed stuff, but you’ve got to do it with sincerity and really, truly respect the person. Otherwise, you’d better wish you’re as good as an Oscar winner! )